U.S. Navy SEALS from SEAL Team Six cut short their targeted operation against a top al-Shabaab commander in Somalia after a firefight at his seaside compound ended when they saw children and realized they could not capture their target.

As details began emerging about the Friday night raid to capture Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, known as “Ikrima,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said in a statement Monday the military personnel “conducted the operation with unparalleled precision.”

Military sources told Fox News that military gear that was left behind, then photographed and tweeted out by al Shabaab, was typical of the gear used by SEALs and showed they left in a hurry.

Al Shabaab is the militant group in Somalia linked to last month’s Kenya mall attack that killed more than 60 people.

SEAL Team Six is the same unit that killed Usama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout in 2011.

Meanwhile, a team of military, intelligence and Justice Department interrogators has been sent to the USS San Antonio in international waters to question terror suspect Abu Anas al-Libi, who was captured in Libya over the weekend in a separate raid, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

The USS San Antonio is a Marine amphibious vessel that was sent during the Syrian crisis to the Eastern Mediterranean but is no longer there.

Al-Libi was indicted in 2000 for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.

The Obama administration has said it can hold high value detainees on a ship for as long as it needs to. During his confirmation hearing in June 2011 to be the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. William McRaven said the U.S. could keep a detainee on a ship for as long as it takes to determine whether the U.S. could prosecute the suspect in civilian court or if the U.S. could return the suspect to another country.

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin and the Associated Press contributed to this report